Change
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Reflection on a life changing decision.


**Author's Note:** Something I've been wanting to write for a while. I cannot write in a way I find decent, but I have to pour out words either way. My fic ' Parting Words' would take place in between this fic, if you're interested.

 **Warning:** This deals with depression and abortion subjects, so please keep that in mind.

Disclaimer: Obviously don't own Shingeki no Kyojin or characters.

.

* * *

.

Tiredness could grow so present in one's life it became monotonous. A constant weight, a constant strain, envelopping and strangling to the point of a familiar, constant exhaustion. Kuchel had to often wonder why she kept going on at all, but change was - or seemed - far too distant a thought, much less an accomplishment to achieve. Tiredness was the feeling she could register. It was self preservation to refrain from hoping anything else. Any wishful thinking.

Certain times could be wearier on the remains of her resilience, making it seem impossible to even try to continue struggling. Others felt almost like a relief, a frail feint of calm. If she cared to, it would almost seem things could improve and change.

They didn't.

Kuchel didn't feel alive, if she stopped to consider it. Her life didn't feel her own - and maybe in some literal senses it really did not belong to her. But she relinquished emotional response to it, resistance and hope for change and improviment. Fighting would require energy she couldn't summon to her body. For longer than she could remember, too many years - _or not? How long has it been since I began feeling this way?_ \- the pattern of tiredness turned exhaustion turned tiredness again had been too comfortably familiar and overwhelming for change. Life became a flow of events to which she was but a spectator, with little reaction to the events witnessed.

As a spectator had little relevance on the surroundings, the people and the circumstances that happened, so did she. She talked, replied, acted and performed according to some pre-made set of imprint that didn't require thinking. So change never happenned, and would remain so until someone or something forced a change upon her.

And it did.

She could witness the several faceless men that paid to be with her, hear their words, accusations and cries; could try to witness their roughness and abuse to avoid the process of feeling it, but eventually the consequence would be on her - and break her out of the spectator role.

To be forced out of it... she couldn't take it.

Which was why, as the days went by and she could feel her body's creeping signals, turning against herself and against the self destructive shell she had on her mind, the only thing it brought to her thoughts was to end - end that change, and maybe why not, end everything.

No one would blame her. No one had blamed her before, the two times the inevitability of being a prostitute had resulted in an unintended life form starting to grow inside her. The owner of the brothel didn't even know the first time - Kuchel didn't hesitate a moment past suspition - and the second time was met with a shrug.

 _"As long as ya keep workin', make up for clients ya lose and don't let the brat in the way, why do I care? I'll only care if it becomes a nuisance."_

Living in a brothel in the Underground wasn't a nuisance, it was a penance. Kuchel couldn't have the responsability of bestowing that life to someone.

 _Responsibility_ _._ The fact she didn't care about her life meant she'd be free of responsibility to face what her dreams and hopes had turned into - the current result of a ruin that the former Kuchel had turned into. The stubborn, decided and hopeful young girl that knew how to talk and get along with people, thugs and merchants alike, that would work hard to feed herself, her brother and acquaintances, that could stand her ground in a fight and that could stand on next to Kenny and without him, the Kuchel that could find small moments of peace to keep going forward - that Kuchel was burried under too much tiredness and pain.

She couldn't take care of herself and deal with her struggle, let alone a child.

This time would be no different.

Few prostitutes chose to carry out pregnancies, for far too many obvious reasons. Kuchel could relate to all she could think about; the physical hindrance of pregancy, the labour and recovery, being the sole parent, the constant need for attendance, the fear of starvation, the fear of illness, the fear of abuse, the fear. Fear of the unknown. The alternative would be to carry an unwanted child for nine months, building up resentment to disgust over the newborn, only to abandon it to die or to sell afterwards. Kuchel could not, would not ever fall down to that desperation. Never. She refused to bring on suffering to someone else besides herself. And suffering would occour by the simple act of breathing beneath the ground.

Maybe in another life, Kuchel would have been able to be a mother. In her designated and created life, she was expected to die alone caught in a cycle without change.

 _Why?_

...most importantly. If she ever held a child on her arms, she knew she wouldn't be able to let the baby go.

 _"Who the fuck gives birth to children in this world, anyway? Look at the problems that brings."_ The uninvited memory of Kenny appeared on her mind as she sat alone in her bedroom, the single quivering candle casting drowsy thick shadows over the sparse division. The familiar light used to leave her reassured and tranquil, but was now leaving her sleepy, estranged, scared.

 _Why would I..._

Just like the two previous times, the cocktail of medicine that would cleanse her body of _'all the parasites',_ as the Old Hag's prescription for prostitutes read, was waiting on top of her bedside table. This time, however, Kuchel had added a slick knife she kept from Kenny before he left. The motive was clear, but she was still trying to... decide.

Decide on what? To end her life rather than take the medicine?

The only replies to the distant question on her mind was the quivering flame, the increasing shadows and the muffled unclear voices from outside.

She was not a spectator - the decision was on her-

What was there to decide?

Everyone considered a child the same thing. Nuisance. Problem. Parasite. A problem, a weight, something to get rid of.

What about her?

Instictively, Kuchel's hand moved carefully towards the fabric of her dress, over the completely flat belly.

The changes were too overwhelming. She couldn't do this.

 _My own change._

She was tired of all of this. She was scared of everything else. She didn't want to feel anything, it would be better to just end it here.

The knife was there. All she had to do was to move her hand and pick it up.

Instead of a deep cut, there was a crashing sound, heavy and screechy.

The candle flickered to Kuchel's silent scream, palms pressed against her eyes and tears crawling heavy on her cheeks.

.

 _Miracles come in small packages._

She could not for the life of her recall if those words were once whispered by someone, or if they formed in her mind as the only possibly verbalization of something otherwise beyond words.

How could someone so small, so fragile, be also the most soft, fragile and perfect being in the world? It was not something that Kuchel could explain to herself, let alone find strength in her body to rationalize.

How could someone so weak bring so much strength?

Oblivious to her exhaustion and overwhelming emotions, the baby boy cuddled against her lap and groaned softly, breathing out a gentle, sleepy sigh. The delicious sound brought a smile to her face, another form to pour the wordless feelings as the tears already streamed from her eyes.

To wish for a future was a challenge in itself. To hope for one was terryfing; it would be nothing but a certain tumultuous path of uncertainty. Yet... maybe that was what everyone else had, and should have, even in the Underground. Be it either ecstatic bliss or tired hopeful naivety, Kuchel didn't fear it at all in this moment. For that one instance, lasting for an eternity and gone in a heartbeat, Kuchel wasn't afraid.

The baby was alive. He was breathing, he was perfect, and he was sleeping. It would be alright.

When the fear did come, suffocating and ruthless, the fear of failure, of pain and of death, it was still a change. She was _feeling,_ for real. She was feeling worried for her own sake and for the sake of someone else.

Who would think one single person could change so much. A child could change so much for the better.

 _It will be for the better._

"Thank you, Levi."

.

* * *

 _._

 **Author's Note:** " _Miracles come in small packages."_ is a quote from Imaginaerum movie by Nightwish.

Thanks for your time. Reviews are appreciated. I'm very tired, but this had to get out of my head, even as it is, unfinished, simple and as unable to reflect what I find important.


End file.
